Old-Fashioned Vanilla Frosting made without Powdered Sugar

My *NEW* favorite vanilla frosting recipe! I used this recipe to frost an Easter bunny cake this spring, on cupcakes I made for my birthday last month & several times in between. The frosting is made with regular granulated sugar not powdered sugar. It comes in super handy if you don’t have powdered sugar on hand but still need to make vanilla frosting. It has to be cooked on the stovetop but it does not take long to make. It also works good for those that are allergic to corn because powdered sugar from the store has corn starch in it, this recipe contains no corn.

This recipe is pretty forgiving & easy to make. You cook the flour and milk together on the stove until it becomes a thick paste then you add it to the butter/sugar mixture to make a nice whipped vanilla buttercream frosting. If I am using the frosting to pipe on to cupcakes I sometimes add extra sugar to thicken it up more so you can add extra sugar if you need to when making it.

Note: This recipe will not taste 100% like powered sugar frosting recipes you may be used to, to me it is more whipped, creamy, & buttery. It is a little less sweet. I love it! Sometimes I find regular vanilla frosting to be too sweet.

Comments

Hi Shawnee, I’m not sure what the problem could. There should be no lumps whatsoever in the mixture, it turns into a paste. Did you use a whisk or fork to mix it until it starts to turn thick and bubble?

Hi Danielle, I’m not sure what the problem could be, the flour was a thick paste when you added it to the butter/sugar mixture correct? That should have been what thickened the frosting. If the frosting is too thin you can keep adding more sugar until it thickens to the consistency you want.

Hi Heidi, I’m not sure what the problem could be, I make this recipe all the time now. It does look different then powdered sugar frosting and although it sometimes looks thin to me when I frost a cake with it it turns out to be just fine. You can add an extra 1/2 cup or more of sugar to it if you want it to thicken.

Mine didn’t come out watery at all! It’s actually a very cool way to make up for having no Powdered sugar in the house, &needing a good vanilla frosting. Some people just don’t understand the concepts of actually doing “one step at a time”
Only could become watery if the elbow work in the whisking’ part was t applied.

Hi! The flavor is absolutely devine! I used your recipe to make dairy free frosting, I swapped out milk and butter with subs, everything worked out fine until it became too thin, I tried to add more sugar but that didn’t work. I don’t want to waste it so I have it in the freezer, hoping it will set until my cakes are cooled. Ik sometimes dairy free butter can get too warm when whipped but I am still new to gf df baking. Any tips? A veteran gf df baker will absolutely be able to use this recipe with subs btw, like I said, I’m just new to it, haha. Ty!

Hi Ashley, I hope that cooling the frosting helps to thicken it up. This frosting doesn’t hold well when it gets too warm even with regular butter. I keep whatever I frost in the refrigerator so it stays firm. Adding more sugar helps too, I’d say you could add an extra 1/2 cup of sugar to the recipe and see if that helps too.

Thank you for the incredible recipe! It worked perfectly as expected. I run a small organic baking operation and was faced with paying $1.60/Kg for organic granulated sugar or $9.00/Kg for powdered sugar. Needless to say, your recipe fixes a big problem, saves a ton of money, but does not compromise flavor, texture and pure perfection when it comes to butter cream as it should be. The granule size of my sugar is also much bigger than typical granulated sugar, but no crunchy sugar can be detected when all said and done. I have made every type of butter cream in my life (Italian, French, American) and this stands up next to those easily in both quality and indulgence.
I ended up tweaking your recipe to make a chocolate version. I simply added 15g of organic cocoa powder in with the butter and sugar. I then added 25g of melted organic 54% chocolate in with the final whipping where the vanilla is added. Delicious!
Thank you again!

Hi DF Haban, I am so glad you like the recipe! It is one of my favorites. I can’t believe the price difference between the 2 sugars, I’m glad you found a solution. I used to make my own powdered sugar by putting regular sugar into a food processor or a coffee grinder to make it into a fine powder. Thanks for taking the time to comment, we appreciate it!

My granddaughters wanted to make cupcakes for Valentines Day. Guess what….no powdered sugar. I googled frosting with no powdered sugar….expecting to find nothing…your receipe came up. Due to time crunch, I didn’t go any further. We made a double batch and this will be my new favorite frosting receipe. Granddaughters loved it and they are picky. This was very easy to make. I have a hard time with frosting. Usually doesn’t turn out. This gets 5 stars out of 5 stars on easy, tasty & quick. Mine was thick without adding extra sugar! Thank you!

Oh my gosh. This is the best frosting ever. I love the fact that it is not as sweet as regular icing. And it is really not that hard to make.
I needed a recipe that didn’t use icing sugar as our Pastor has a corn allergy and I didn’t realize that icing sugar had cornstarch in it.
Thank you so much.
And to the person who got lumps in their flour mixture, try using your sifter as you add your flour and whisk your milk. Little bit at a time, worked great.
And to the person who said cinnamon buns….thanks….I am using this one now.
Thanks again. My new icing recipe.